1992: George H.W. Bush was asked the price of bread. "I'd say ... it would cost you about a buck a loaf." (He was right.)

The big picture: Billionaires may be unlikely to know what a grocery item costs, and their actions as president would have limited effects on prices.

But they should know the broader trends in the costs that most Americans face.

Health care: How much has the average health insurance deductible for a family of four changed over the past 5 years? How about copays?

Education: What's the average price of tuition at a public 4-year university? How much has this outpaced inflation over the past few decades?

Kids: What's the average cost of child care in your home state? Is this a greater share of take-home income than it was 10 years ago? 20?

The youths: What percentage of 25-year-olds have more than $50,000 in student debt? What percentage of 25-year-olds have purchased a home? How do these compare to 10 years ago?

Housing: How much of the average American's monthly paycheck goes to rent or a mortgage?

Rainy day funds: How many months of living expenses does the average American have in liquid savings?

Why it matters: “[T]he next president will have to demonstrate not only that he or she understands the day-to-day struggles that people are facing, but they also have to lay out a clear plan to address those problems," Center for American Progress SVP Daniella Gibbs Léger told Axios.

Flashback: 82 days ago, the Dow closed at a record high — 26,828 — on a day where this newsletter focused on the Khashoggi coverup and the power shift driven by #MeToo.

Driving the news: "Mnuchin convened a call [today] with top regulatory officials ... to discuss coordination efforts to assure normal market operations. Regulators on the call said that markets were functioning normally..." [WSJ]

Prudential Financial strategist Quincy Krosby: “We’ve gone through situations before where it’s absolutely normal for the secretary of Treasury to reach out to the private sector... But what’s bad is this made the papers, and says the government is very worried." [WSJ]

What they're saying:

Trump: "The only problem our economy has is the Fed. They don’t have a feel for the Market, they don’t understand necessary Trade Wars or Strong Dollars or even Democrat Shutdowns over Borders. The Fed is like a powerful golfer who can’t score because he has no touch - he can’t putt!"

Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi: '"It's Christmas Eve and President Trump is plunging the country into chaos. The stock market is tanking and the president is waging a personal war on the Federal Reserve..."

Be smart: We’ve transitioned from a glass half-full bull market to a glass half-empty environment. This is much different than earlier this year when no amount of bad news could shake the market. Now it’s the opposite: good news isn’t as powerful as it used to be.

The bottom line: “The markets going down will eventually create an economic problem... People who spend money as consumers, if they have stock exposure, they’re reconsidering if they’re going to buy a $1,000 present — they’ll buy a $200 one.” [Bloomberg]

We still know very little about the drones that have shut down Gatwick, the U.K.'s second busiest airport, but their example is a painful reminder of our transportation system's vulnerabilities.

The big picture: This is why drone manufacturers want rules to prevent incidents like this that significantly damage trust in the nascent industry. In the U.S., the Federal Aviation Administration was expected to craft regulations this year. That didn’t happen, and drone companies aren’t happy.

A pair of drones have been spotted flying over the runway at Gatwick, grounding flights as police furiously search for the perpetrator(s), BBC reports.

That's left thousands stranded, hundreds of flights canceled and even the military being brought in to try to help, with no end in sight.

"[T]he drone intrusion that shut the airport was 'highly targeted' and designed to cause 'maximum disruption' just before Christmas," AP reports.

Between the lines: Events like today give public safety and law enforcement agencies ammunition to say, “This is why drones are a safety and national security threat.” They have a point.

Law enforcement will struggle with handling stray drones. (U.K. police feared shooting the Gatwick ones because of concerns about stray bullets.)

In the U.S., "lawmakers have given law enforcement new powers to hack or even shoot down drones that may pose security threats. Advances in drone technology, however, make it more difficult for law enforcement to identify communication signals between drones and ground operators," WSJ reports.

Drones can be innocuous. They could also be outfitted with bombs.

Elon Musk, in an "Axios on HBO" interview, warned of "assassin drones" that would use facial recognition to track and kill targets.

In addition to increased interest in recreational drones, tech companies like Google, Amazon and Intel have invested in developing the technologies for their own business purposes, such as package delivery.

Commercial drones can fly under specific height limits, but not over people. The FAA can grant a waiver for other commercial uses — such as during sporting events.

What to watch: To help appease security concerns, drone makers support remote identification standards so officials can spot drones operated by potential hostile actors.

But there’s some disagreement on how to do that technologically. The drone industry most wants the FAA to establish rules that allow operators to fly drones beyond their line of sight and over people.

Without standards around those activities, the industry is stuck in a holding pattern.

Be smart, via Axios' Andrew Freedman: Gatwick is uniquely susceptible since it's a small, single-runway airport (not small in impact but in area).

Doing this at Atlanta or Denver or Chicago would be really hard, more like half an airport shutdown, as the drone operators would have to cover a massive distance.

The flip side: If they can't defend a single runway airport from this, what can they defend from a drone attack?